Mr. Roach is an internationally recognized expert on matters involving compliance, enterprise risk management, monitoring and internal investigations.
As a member of the Guidepost Risk and Compliance and National Security teams, he develops compliance, risk management and monitoring programs for U.S. domestic and international organizations in a number of complex regulatory areas, including: antitrust, export control and trade sanctions laws, data privacy, equal opportunity laws, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other international antibribery laws, higher education and research compliance laws, supply chain ethics and international fair labor standards compliance. Mr. Roach also develops compliance hotlines and internal investigation processes; improve existing processes or conduct sensitive internal investigations.
Mr. Roach was a senior advisor on the Guidepost team that worked collaboratively with the University of Michigan to create a more dynamic ethics and compliance program and promote a culture of safety and inclusion.
Prior to joining Guidepost, Mr. Roach served as the vice president, chief global compliance officer at New York University, the largest private university in the U.S., where he was responsible for establishing and leading compliance programs at three degree-granting campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai and 11 additional global academic sites. He developed and implemented an effective global compliance and risk management program, including compliance risk assessments and compliance policies and procedures, and conducting compliance, ethics, and risk management training. Mr. Roach was also responsible for NYU’s Code of Ethical Conduct, and as part of these responsibilities he established and maintained NYU’s compliance hotlines and conducted internal investigations and monitoring globally, including investigations in the United States, the European Union, Africa, Middle East, and Asia. In addition, he worked closely with NYU’s Environmental Health and Safety Department, including its administrators for the construction and monitoring and development and implementation of a compliance program to meet International Labor Standards for contract workers in Abu Dhabi. Mr. Roach reported directly to NYU’s Audit and Compliance Committee of the Board of Trustees.
While at NYU, Mr. Roach also served as adjunct professor of Business Ethics, NYU Stern Langone MBA program; visiting professor of Business Ethics at NYU Shanghai and visiting professor at NYU Abu Dhabi where he taught risk management in the Engineering Division.
Prior to NYU, Mr. Roach spent more than 20 years in the public sector with the New York City Department of Investigations, the New York County District Attorney’s Office, and the New York Attorney General’s Office. He worked on numerous matters involving the construction industry including investigations and prosecutions of bid rigging, organized crime involvement, market allocation, money laundering, fraud, zoning, landmark preservation, employment issues, demolition, construction management, vendor integrity, and public corruption.
Mr. Roach served as the national chairperson of the American Association of Corporate Counsel, Corporate Compliance and Ethics Committee. The National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) presented him with its First Decade Award for his significant contributions to NACUA in compliance and higher education law.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Roach worked as a civil rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Service Corporation. His accomplishments include successful challenges to unconstitutional conditions at the Danville, Virginia prison and the removal of the monthly newsletter of an LBGT organization from the Virginia Beach Library System. At the request of the ACLU National Prison Project, he conducted the successful criminal defense of an inmate charged with an attempted escape from Virginia’s death row in the Mecklenburg Maximum Security Prison. In Florida, Mr. Roach brought successful class action law suits resulting in a federal court injunction desegregating of the Collier County school system; a federal court injunction and declaratory judgment holding that the City of Belle Glade discriminated on the basis on race in its housing and building code enforcement, and a federal court injunction barring the Immokalee Housing Authority from discriminating against migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the award of federal housing benefits.
